Australia should become a republic when Queen Elizabeth II dies, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said just days ahead of a general election.

The Queen has exhibited the customary "no leadership whatsoever" which although based totally on protocol, I think is a little unfortunate.

I would prefer that Australia became a Republic PRIOR to her demise, **with her blessing / at her request **. That way the issue becomes far less divisive for the Australian people, who have far more important issues to concern themselves with.

I would prefer that Australia became a Republic PRIOR to her demise, with her blessing / at her request

Why would she request the change without a clear statement by the Australian people that they want to become a republic? Wikipedia cites a 2008 poll that claimed a 45-42 split in favour of a republic, with 13% undecided. Maybe the numbers are different now, though.

No one with a brain likes him. Liz is fine, friendly and above all tactful. Prince Charles is a privilege-crazed madman who combines the worst aspects of new age and old age mentality and who's been repeatedly found using his influence to interfere in public or private affairs.

He's exactly the sort of impressionable, vaguely syphilitic man who ran Europe into centuries of perpetual war and religious strife, and he's going to be king in just a few years. Ugh.

i've never even truly understood the point of the queen as a head of state other than being a throw back to a lost colonialist empire..as far as i know she's a financial burden within the UK - correct?

I used to be a staunch republican but now I'm a lot more on the fence, since I've come to appreciate that the constitutional monarchy, at least the UK brand, gives a lot of stability.

The UK model of constitutional monarchy, for want of a better way of putting it, is a straight-up parliamentary democracy with the Queen/Governor-General acting as a "safety valve". In the normal course of events the parliament runs things however it sees fit, but in extraordinary circumstances the Queen or Governor-General can step in and exercise certain exceptional powers to stabilise the situation.

For example, if the Australian parliament were to try to establish a dictatorship tomorrow, the Governor-General would have the legal authority to withhold consent from the bill, or to dissolve parliament entirely. As a more realistic example, in 1976 there was an impasse between the two houses of parliament that essentially shut down the government entirely, and which was only resolved by the Governor-General stepping in and calling elections.

The above works because the Queen and the Governor-General are not political figures, but instead are highly respected persons playing a role governed by centuries of tradition and convention. They have no power to "take over", they just sit back as idle watchdogs most of the time.

It is very, very difficult to make a republic that gives the same protections as the above, in no small part because setting up a republic involved throwing away a lot of the tradition and convention that comes with the monarchy, and also because there's the issue of who is to then play the role of Governor-General (if anyone). The two main proposals in Australia have been for the Governor-General to be replaced by a "president" who is either directly elected or appointed by a supermajority of parliament.

Direct election of a president necessarily makes the president a political figure and essentially ensures that they will become partisan. It also gives them a mandate of sorts to exercise their powers as they see fit, when the whole beauty of the present system is that the Governor-General does not use their powers due to the constraints of convention.

Appointing a President by a supermajority of parliament isn't the worst idea (especially since, in practice, the Prime Minister gets to tell the Queen who to appoint as Governor-General), but it still removes a lot of the tradition and convention from the role. Rather than being a royal appointment, entirely separate from parliament, the President would be nothing more than any other government appointee.

Fans of the West Wing might recall the sixth season episode "The Wake-up Call". A large part of that episode revolves around a group of Belarussians visiting the White House in the course of writing a new constitution for their country. The point of the story is that, ultimately, the words of the constitution aren't what is important, it's the ideas and the values of the people applying it that matter. As archaic as it may seem, the tradition and convention surrounding a constitutional monarchy are far harder for a rogue politician or demagogue to displace than almost any republican model (let alone a presidential republic).

TL;DR: The monarchy isn't perfect, but the traditions and the conventions surrounding it are helpful, since it's the popular acceptance of strong traditions that keep democracies democratic, and a change to a republic necessarily means weakening such traditions, even if ever so slightly.

It also provides a nonpolitical person to award honors, etc, the general cynicism with politics would always assume that anyone publicly honored was being honored as part of a political quid quo pro. I think this is reduced slightly in cases where the roles of head of state and the head of the executive are split, and the head of state is apolitical.

Except that the GG is more or less a Prime-Ministerial appointment. In principle it would be better to put it to vote by the people, but then how that is done is a damn hard question to answer, I think we can all agree we do not want an American style system. The other issue is that we would not want to give any more power to the head of state than he already has.

Instead we see that it's who ever made the biggest pay-off to the puppet masters. If I wanted to spend the money I can't be on IMDB, but I could be a Knight and get a star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame tomorrow.

A president can still be elected, but through an electoral college, while retaining all the safety-valve conditions that a GG or a monarch has. Which is what we do in India; that part of the system has arguably worked so far.

With respect to what we're talking about, a ceremonial head of state and an executive head of government. Perhaps that head of government can even be accountable to the legislature. Either way, a separation, as mapoftasmania coined, of patriotism and politics.

Obviously, with that as a base, you would need to reform the procedures and structures of the houses of congress. I've got extensive thoughts on this (admittedly mostly modelled on the UK, but I'm biased) but that's not exactly the subject at hand.

Coincidentally I'd also advise a separation of policy and administration (AKA permanent and impartial civil service), but that's also by-the-by.

The US isn't far wrong. The idea is good, the bit about all states having equal representation is rather skewed now that it means California has the same number of senators as Wyoming, but I think the big problem is that its political system has degenerated into two-party tribalism - same problem as in the UK only far, far worse. Preference voting might well improve things in both systems. You could vote for the small party that represents your true interests, without fear that by doing so you would split the vote for the large party you have moderate disagreements with and so let in the party you really can't stand.

The idea is good, the bit about all states having equal representation is rather skewed now that it means California has the same number of senators as Wyoming

I think on its foundation it is a solid system. However the current issue is still with the two party system. Both the left, right, old, and new notice this as the problem. With only two parties you could as many checks and balances as you want, but a group would still have too much problem.

Interestingly Prime Ministers in UK style Parliaments with a majority government (party has elected majority of seats in parliamentary election) have a much freer hand than the American President. Canada's government has often been referred to as a "benevolent dictatorship" much for this reason.

I like where our checks and balances have got us. For example our Supreme Court routinely strikes down dumb-assed laws our congress and president (and state governments) produce. Our head of state can't introduce legislation and his veto power can be over-ruled. Bills he does sign can be killed by the SCOTUS. He can (and several times has) been impeached and even removed. He can only have two terms, or 8 years no matter what he does.

Not American, so perhaps I'm misinterpreting things, but from where I'm standing:

Your president, despite not being responsible for legislation, is still held to account for it and its effects but even then only once at most, and anything the president (or even congress) does after that, the president can't be held to account for; your congressmen tend to be held to account mostly for their constituency work to the detriment of their actions in congress; your senate can and does obstruct good and bad legislation blindly.

All of that adding up to the point where it becomes extremely difficult to fix any problem that comes about because any legislation that adversely affects things is so difficult to alter. Add in the fact that it's very difficult to get things right first time round because of the inevitable unintended consequences that will arise from it, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

When people get really unhappy, then a lot of congressmen and even the president lose their job. They know this. The present level of obstructionism is indeed shocking and it does halt the process- but it's also almost unheard of in our history. Not obstructing legislation but the protracted, determined effort to do so just out of spite. I think this is happening because one political party is dying and it is going out kicking and screaming.

Ultimately, the question of governmental design is.. what would make this system better? What is the superior way of doing things we have overlooked? Governing 330+ million people just isn't ever going to be easy or simple. I'm all ears.

Well, even counting this level of obstructionism as odd, I still think the best and easiest thing you could do to change your system as it stands is to make laws easier to pass. For example, that Healthcare bill that was passed will be a small fix to a big problem, and I suspect that quite a lot of what's in it will, like most legislation, be ineffective or have unintended consequences. Now, the trouble for the US is that because of the political capital expended on getting the last one through, no president will have the bottle to try a new one for possibly a decade or more.

Here in the UK, we have Health Acts of some kind or another every year or two, usually nothing particularly revolutionary, but it's an effort to put right things that are wrong. No one says you'd need to go that far, but if you at least didn't have to have a supermajority and superb political leadership to get laws through, you could get to grips with the problems your nation faces more than once a decade and perhaps even put things right when previous provisions have unintended consequences.

Well even in the UK there is bitter division about certain issues that do not easily get resolved. The failing of democracy is that it gives you the government you deserve not the best possible one. Americans are the spoiled rotten children of the world. With every big change we go kicking and screaming. We fought the nastiest war in our history with ourselves when we couldn't decide through discussion whether state or federal authority was ultimately superior. The problem isn't that everyone cares so deeply about relatively moderate changes to healthcare.. it's that half the country has the mindset "I got the toys in my playpen just how I WANT THEM AND YOU CANT TOUCH! NooOOoOoO! NoooOOoOO!" repeat for desegregation, gay rights, women's rights, secularism, etc..,

Part of the problem is that there are so many checks and balances that there is now political gridlock; actions cannot be taken unless there is strong political leadership or there is a supermajority. The other part of the problem is that the US has become incredibly large, so large that there are significant competing interests between the different regions. I actually think that democratic countries can only grow so large before they become unworkable.

So you keep the head of state neutered. The problem in the US as I see it is that they gave the majority of the federal administration to the president, leaving congress to simply pull the purse strings. A better system would be effectively what we have now, except an elected head of state instead of a Prime-Ministerial appointment. I think this is more or less the model of most republics.

We could just re-label the GG as President & change nothing else. Having him/her appointed by a majority of parliament seems a bit more democratic tho...

I think direct election is a BLOODY AWFUL idea. How much money would be wasted on a ghastly american-style presidential campaign? The only people who could afford it have the surnames Packer & Murdoch. Now there's a choice between the devil & the deep blue sea...

We could just re-label the GG as President & change nothing else. Having him/her appointed by a majority of parliament seems a bit more democratic tho...

Well, as I said above the reality is that the G-G is actually currently selected by the PM, even if the Queen has a theoretical power to choose otherwise.

The whole beauty of the constitutional monarchy is the inclusion of an unelected check on the power of parliament. Anything elected, or capable of being chosen by the elected, lends itself to mob rule (see, for example, the extreme partisanship now seen in the US Supreme Court, which has harmed its ability to act as an effective check on Congress).

The Queen and the GG have no such partisan loyalties, so they have no incentive to act to favour a particular party, and they have no mandate (either direct or indirect) that would enable them to act against the wishes of the government in anything except the most extreme situations.

I agree with what you've said, but it's more a tradition (or maybe a coincidence) that the monarch & the GGs tend to be non-partisan. There's nothing actually in the rules to stop the next king being, or a Prime Minister appointing a GG who is, fiercely partisan. I suspect Charles is pretty damn conservative, and may well be inclined to push the behavioural envelope established by his mother.

Also, there are people who would argue that the sacking of the Whitlam government was not exactly a non-partisan act.

Well, not in the rules no, but it's a fact that if our sovereign stepped out of bounds, she would be forced to abdicate quicker than you can say 'republic'. And there might well end up being a republic if the successor does it too. It's an incentive, you might say.

Any political act can be seen as a partisan act, whether it be the dismissal of a government or the unasked-for dissolution of parliament. That's why you need a head of state that traditionally doesn't act politically so that they have sufficient respect and are sufficiently trusted to carry out the difficult decision if and when it has to be taken without being accused too much of partisanship.

That's also, coincidentally, why I would prefer a more transparent system of appointing the governor-general and longer terms too. But perhaps that's besides the point.

Strawman much? Nobody seriously contends that the Queen is divine. She's simply a person who, by chance and tradition, happens to fill a certain role, and for all the reasons set out above it's a role best filled by someone who is above partisan politics. Yes, it's "undemocratic" in theory, but her powers are in practice so constrained as to make that no imposition.

You could replace the Queen/G-G's role with a person randomly picked from the population, but for the problem that such a random person wouldn't have nearly the same degree of familiarity with the relevant traditions and conventions.

Hang on, WHY can't our system function exactly the same way it does, except with a non-partisan elected official instead of a hereditary dictator? Your argument really makes no sense at all, I said ban party affiliation from the top job, and hence maintain a non-partisan leader. If you think our GG is non-partisan now then you are kidding yourself, the thing is he (she!) really has no power and we can maintain that through a republic. we do not need to follow the US system, which is honestly a terrible example of a republic.

Simple solution: hand pick a random child from the population at birth and raise them as a prince(ss), then you get rid of the unfairness of the hereditary aspect and keep the being raised in relevant traditions and conventions. win/win

The CIA-backed coup of the mid-'70s is hardly the best example of the monarchist system working well. The GG overstepped his bounds, taking the advice of the Opposition leader (who had breached convention by blocking supply in the Senate, iirc).

Additionally, you could preserve the current govermental structure by simply getting rid of the queen and changing the GG's title to "President" (though an accompanying formal reduction in power would be nice). Then you'd retain the so-called "safety valve".

If you make sure that the President has no authority, you can avoid public elections becoming a political thing. Perhaps have nominees selected by a supermajority in Parliament. Currently, the GG isn't "entirely separate from parliament". The Sovereign is part of Parliament, and the GG is the Sovereign's representative, therefore part of Parliament. I don't see what would be at all bad about the President being a "government appointee".

If you truly saw the corruption within the minor royals you would change your view --- the most recent being Andrew/Fergie where Fergie was taking bribes for introductions to Andrew in his official capacity as UK Special Trade Envoy.

As an American, I can really see the value in splitting the head of state and chief executive positions. I'm not sure a Monarch is any better than an elected Head of State as in Ireland or Israel, but here in the US the requirement that the President be both the symbolic embodiment of the nation and the everything-in-chief is one of the reasons our government is a mess. We expect one person to be both feel-good, above the fray inspiration and the down and dirty, sausage making, doer. Hard to do both, particularly in a media culture that loves nothing more than the narrative of build 'em up, knock 'em down, see if they can redeem themselves.

I'm pretty happy with our system where we elect a symbol for a few years as head of state and keep executive power at a parliamentary level. Probably because I'm Irish, I cannot understand why anyone would want a monarchy for any practical reasons. Traditions are fine, but being born into head of state is a bit much. Could the English Queen not still be queen but have no association with the levellers of power and make her own ends meet. The English royal family own enough land, that they'd be ok renting out to people..

It's a nice statistic but it conveniently glosses over the money that goes the other way. The Royal family generates a lot of profit from all the property and land it owns which all goes back into the tax system.

Relax, pommie, no ones trying to heist the crown jewels here. I guess the true task is to compare the money going into and out of the royal family. I frankly don't care either way if the taxpayer cost is low or considered reasonable after factoring in all the created jobs and other externalities.

The Governor General must be a financial burden too, right? Judge that accordingly and you'll have your answer for the UK. It's the same thing, a head of state with little to no interference on policy, spending money traveling around the country, or the world.

In Canada there's been talk of becoming a republic, but nobody really cares. The Queen still has her fans here. The only way I can see it happening is if the royal family interferes at all. I remember news that one of the Princes was wanting to be appointed GG of Australia. If they were to start doing stuff like that, meddling; I'd be in full support of the change.

She receives money from the UK treasury. Many argue about tourism but the fact is we'd get more tourism if we could open Buckingham palace to the public.

The main reason nobody wants to deal with it is that it would open a can of worms wrt to who owns the various royal estates.

Without decisive action it is never going to happen because the legal systems practically require you to acknowledge the legitimacy of the monarch. It would take persistent outside pressure to make it happen and the royalists know all they need to do is wait out the periods where dissatisfaction mounts.

The Crown Estate is one of the largest property owners in the United Kingdom with a portfolio worth £6 billion, with urban properties valued at £4.6 billion, and rural holdings valued at £971.7 million; and an annual profit of £210.7 million, as at 15 July 2010.

The thing that should be noted about the Crown Estates, is that even though it's property originally owned by the monarchy (and, I guess you could say, theoretically still is) all of those profits go to the treasury. The Civil List, being the money actually paid to the royal family for their use is only £7.9 million.

Accordingly, even excluding the tourism dollars earned, the UK government makes 25 times as much from the Queen as it pays her each year. If she got sacked, she'd be quite justified to ask for her £6 billion property portfolio back, and that'd cost the government far more than it would ever save.

she'd be quite justified to ask for her £6 billion property portfolio back

That's only if the people want to give it back. Usually monarchs don't get anything and are lucky if they get to keep their heads after their reign is abolished (France, Russia, China, Iran, Nepal, etc)

Not only that, but the royal family has helped generate a lot of business in the UK as well. Many of their travels involve ribbon cuttings, meeting with local business and foreign nationals interested in growing business in the UK. A royal endorsement on a contract can make it very lucrative.

No, most people don't have particularly strong feelings on the subject, but the general mood is a soft anti-republicanism, mostly out of affection for the Queen. Charles, however, is kind of lame, so I reckon people would be more amenable to becoming a republic when he's King.

Any Commonwealth realm has the Queen's blessing to become a republic if they ask for it. She really doesn't care very much.

As an argument against dissolving the monarchy as a whole, I really like this sentiment from mapoftasmania

The last thing Britain wants is some douchebag politician as head of state.

After 9/11 Bush's approval rating went up because the country rallied around the head of state. In the UK, the Queen fills that role and rallying around her is mostly harmless. The Prime Minister whose intelligence lapses caused such an event would not have such an easy ride.

It's separation of patriotism and politics and I cannot commend it to you enough.

Although I find it strange to have a foreigner as your head of state (although Canadians remind me REII is a Canadian), I don't get why it makes any different whether she's the titular head of state or not.

The article says "let's become a Republic" when she's gone. You're not a republic now?

My point was that how does your government not operate as a Republic already? How can you say you should "become" a Republic when you already are one, just one with a Queen (who has little power and exercises none of it) slotted in there too?

I'd say the standard definition of a republic is that the head of state is not a monarch, otherwise it's a monarchy? And technically, the GG is the Queen's representative. Altho if she called & said 'sack the parliament', I assume the GG would suggest she take a bex & have a nice lie down...

Only No. 3 here really backs me up tho

a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.

any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.

a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.

But the whole point of a "white-out republic" (in which references to the Queen/Governor-General are whited out and replaced with references to a President) is that the existing political structure is preserved. Currently, the Governor-General is typically selected from a pool of authors, sportspeople, lawyers, civil servants and the like. The only real qualifications are being able to speak well, cut a ribbon, and host a dinner. The current Governor General of Canada is a journalist and charity worker. Obviously, there'll be a de facto requirement that candidates be at least middle class, but that's already the status quo for GG, and for the position of Sovereign, the requirement is that one be born, by sheer chance, into a particular family that is bleeding rich.

.. the advertising for votes process is politically and commercially loaded. Not a good way to divine for a neutral Head of State.

For this kind of thing it's always going to be the least bad option. It depends on what is important .. and the important thing for a Head of State is to be above and beyond politics .. an entrenched, monarchy, as far as i can see, is the only way to do that.

So, if it's a choice between the well that has sour tasting water, and the well that has poisonous water, it has to be the monarchy tasting water.

The Queen and her Governor General are a safety net and currently aren't doing anything to harm Australia. The GG can fire a PM during a time of crisis. So ask yourselves this: If it costs us relatively nothing to keep it, why should we throw away an ability to remove an abusive PM should one be elected?

We can only become a republic by referendum, therefore we control whether or not the Queen has any hold over Australia. It would be pretty daft to try and be re-assimilated should we become a republic and then have a President shit all over us.

The powers are keeping each other in check and currently we hold all the cards.

Maybe I just visited more government places but I noticed more pictures of the Queen hanging on walls in Canada than I saw in Australia or New Zealand. I think Canada has a greater desire to distinguish themselves from their southern neighbours.

it's like a parent with grown children. they can't tell the children what to do anymore, but there is still room to be supportive of each other in matters of mutual interest and need. One doesn't need to stop being a son or daughter in order to be free and independent of their parents.

A monarchical numbering is a matter of royal prerogative, and if she wanted she could have numbered herself Queen Elizabeth the Third, counting Isabella of France, the queen consort of Edward the Second, as the first English queen named Elizabeth. It's her call.

It's funny how the Australians didn't have a fit over her not calling herself the First Queen of Oz.

I remember reading in a newspaper here in Canada at one point (similar government set up with QE2 as head of state) that constitutional scholars had theorized that legally when the Queen dies if the government failed to declare her successor the new sovereign then the British Crown effectively would not longer be a valid reigning monarch of the country and the Governor General would assume the role of Head of State indefinitely. Although its uncertain whether this would hold up legally it certainly would save the Australians lots of time and money by essentially keeping their government with none of the cost and mess of reinventing their government and constitution.

As a Canadian i really dont see the point of removing her a the head of state. Honestly i say we just pass a law stating that once the queen passes we keep her on our money for the sack of keeping it simple and cheap.

Having the Governor General as the Head of State is a very good safety valve. I am also opposed to an Elected Senate, i really don''t see the point. Personally i would like to see the Senate replaced with a group of people that are nominated by the leaders of the provinces and have it done proportionally.

Having an Elected Senate will simply be a mirror of Parliament, having the Senate as a unelected house of sober thought not worried about being elected every 5 years will keep them from pandering to the voters.

Here in Australia the senate is elected, but not a mirror of the lower house. The senate is where all the minority parties get a chance to have a say (and sometimes the balance of power), as we have proportional representation there (unlike the lower house).

To do away with the senate would mean giving all power to the two major parties, a terrible idea IMO.

But in the UK system, the person at the top doesn't need to be awesome. Because she doesn't govern. And worst comes to worst, we can always get rid of her if things go wrong and have her heir become King.

We are a parliamentary republic who happens to have a hereditary monarch as our head of state.

Spain, however, faced exactly such a situation in the early 80's, and the King prevented the coup against the recently re-instated democratic government, so perhaps it's got something counting for it. ;)

hehe :) See yr point, but Australians are a pretty apathetic bunch overall. Possibly the strongest argument against the republic at the last referendum ('99) was 'if it ain't broke, don't fuck with it'...

Not a lot of point getting rid of her really. It's not as if she costs you anything (we pay for her) and it you'd lose a free diplomat and you'd probably have to have a whole new constitution and so on. It's just a bit of tradition, and it's on us :)